If you want the Ryanair of sailing - Go with Costa Cruises. We had hoped for a trip of a lifetime but experienced the opposite. Even before we left the UK we were provided wrong information by Costa Cruises & Iglu Cruises regarding the requirement to have a full Chinese visa to visit Shenzhen. Arriving to board the ship in Singapore, we had to wait for over three hours in hot conditions with no water being provided. When we finally reached the check in desk, we had to sign a waiver regarding our visit to Shenzhen, agreeing to stay on board as we did not get a Chinese Visa. On finally getting to our cabin we were surprised how basic it was fitted out allowing that it was a new ship, especially as it did not have a refrigerator, which was necessary to store my medication. Information provided to British passengers was far from lacking which meant hours of queing at the Customer Services Desk, other nationalities seemed to have their own representatives scattered around the ship. The ship was finished to a relatively good standard but felt very cramped and crowded with over 5000 passengers on board. The ship did have two pools which were tiny and not very inviting. Meals during the day was nothing short of a bun fight in the main buffet restaurant, night time was a bit better with allocated dining. Overall the quality of food was OK but the eating habits of many of the passengers was very unsettling. Entertainment throughout was poor quality, shows were extremely short averaging only 30 minutes. Now the queues, you had to queue for literally everything, food, water, hot drinks, ice, Customer Desk, Tours Desk but worst of all the queing to get off the ship was generally uncontrolled and dangerous. Costa Cruises obviously do not adhere to health and safety when it comes to passengers. Even when we reached Tokyo it took over four hours to leave the ship. In summary the cruise was far from relaxing, staff could have been more customer focussed and the information and organisation should have been better. This experience has put us off booking a Costa (Carnival) Cruise again.